The 5 best tools to develop a mobile-first SEO strategy

Search marketers rely on tools to make sense of what it is a very complex, fluid environment. With the increasing importance of mobile, the list of tools grows even longer. Which platforms should search marketers use to devise a mobile-first SEO strategy? While we await the launch of Google’s mobile-first index, search marketers are aiming to capitalize on the growing quantity of searches made on smartphones. We spent a long time anticipating the ‘mobile era’, but for many businesses it has been a reality for some time now. The numbers certainly tell their own story. Mobile searches now outnumber desktop queries, and mobile advertising spend is projected to exceed $100 billion worldwide this year. (Source: Statista) Of course, this means that the ranking signals for mobile are different to those used for desktop results. That stands to reason; smartphones are used for different purposes and they provide Google with different data sets to calculate its rankings. Mobile websites often differ from their desktop counterparts too, so marketers need to be sure that their online presence is prepared for a mobile-first world. Recently, we wrote that there are three areas that really matter for mobile SEO performance: Context: How many people search for your products online? When and where do they tend to search? Speed/accessibility: How quickly does your mobile site load? Are there differences in the internal linking structures of your mobile and desktop sites? User engagement signals: How well does your site render on a mobile device? Are you tracking the right metrics for mobile performance? These…